


Those Who Dare, Die

by LadyVader



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19820461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVader/pseuds/LadyVader
Summary: Arthur blinked awake in an instant, his fingers folded about the grip of his gun, the muzzle up and pointed at where the slight sound had roused him, breath caught in his throat as he narrowed his focus, dragging his brain all the way out of the depths to glare at the intruder stood at the foot of his bed.“You realise had I been slightly less alert, that there would have been a bullet in your brain right now?”Eames remained still, his hands sunk deep into his pockets, expression oddly grave as he stared back.“We need to go. Now.”[Based (loosely) on the prompt: "someone in dreamshare discovers Arthur's past because they performed an extraction and instead of whatever secrets they've been hired to steal, a box/safe/whatever of photographs of Arthur before he became Arthur."]





	Those Who Dare, Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/gifts).



> The amazing and lovely DLS made me this gorgeous banner and the stunning matching  
> moodboard (as well as inadvertently incepting me into writing this fic :P ) The prompt was filled already but after talking with DLS about the boys and the wealth of fun still to be had with writing them, I found that I couldn't resist having a crack at it myself, so basically this is all down to her ;P

Arthur blinked awake in an instant, his fingers folded about the grip of his gun, the muzzle up and pointed at where the slight sound had roused him, breath caught in his throat as he narrowed his focus, dragging his brain all the way out of the depths to glare at the intruder stood at the foot of his bed.

“You realise had I been slightly less alert, that there would have been a bullet in your brain right now?”

Eames remained still, his hands sunk deep into his pockets, expression oddly grave as he stared back.

“We need to go. Now.”

Arthur let his hands fall back to his lap, exhausted and yet abruptly even more alert, cold and uneasy in the absence of the Englishman’s usual tacky innuendos or warm humour, as suddenly awake as if he had been dropped into a bath of ice water.

“What’s happened? I thought you were off with Yusuf testing for Saito, I--?”

Eames moved, sudden and swift enough for Arthur’s fingers to twitch back towards his weapon before he could fully arrest their movement, his jeans and sweater flung at him from where he’d wearily left them laid over the chair as Eames stepped closer, tone tight with urgency.

“ _Now,_ darling, we need to move.”

He stalked off, seemingly to fetch Arthur’s shoes if the clattering from by the main door was any indicator. Arthur heaved himself out of bed with a frown, a week's worth of poor sleep weighing him down as he automatically began pulling his jeans and top on over his boxers and t-shirt as his brain darted about for clarity.

Had he told anyone what hotel he’d be staying at? This had only been a research trip, to satisfy his own curiosity, nothing more, nothing for work, nothing for dream share – did he remember how he got there? – Yes, yes he remembered the strange lull of no longer needing to run, no longer fighting just to keep Cobb sane. Finding himself with free time to look into his own interests, luxuriating in the ability to simply take a day _off_ if he so chose.

And yet.

Here was Eames, in his hotel room, thousands of miles from where Arthur supposedly knew him to be, with the sort of expression that Arthur now associated with the notion of being trapped under fire, with nowhere to go but down.

Eames stormed back into the bedroom, Arthur’s shoes and laptop snatched from the main room and dropped onto the bed as he shifted to start removing Arthur’s remaining clothes from the closet.

“I take it I’m checking out early?”

Arthur lifted his bag up from under the bed and swiftly began to pack, his eyebrows furrowed. He watched as Eames methodically sought each item that belonged to him and not the _Comfort Inn_ , his familiar loose, almost offensively laidback stride lost to short, tense paces back and forth until the only sign that Arthur had ever been present was the still warm sheets on the bed.

Eames made a point of returning Arthur’s key to the desk, Arthur left to stand -- with no small amount of irritation by this time – in the shadows by the revolving door before Eames joined him, a hand at his elbow as he led him outside to where (if Arthur was any judge) a freshly stolen car stood waiting for them at the kerbside.

Eames got in, staring quizzically up into Arthur’s glowering face for a moment when he made no move to follow him into the vehicle.

“Explain,” Arthur bit out tersely, his arms folded, “ _now_.”

Eames visibly ground his teeth, and a frisson of fear flared at the base of Arthur’s spine even as his exasperation mounted.

“I will explain it all as we go, but we must, in fact, _go_ , Arthur. Come along.”

He gestured to him to get into the car in the same manner that Arthur had seen Yusuf use to summon his cats to his lap and wished for the ability to grind his heels into the cement beneath his feet, just to make his point.

“No,” he hissed, “ _now_. And if you continue to treat me like an unruly child, a pet or a goddamn damsel in distress, I will shoot both your kneecaps off your body. Got it?”

Eames sighed heavily, lifting a hand from the wheel to pinch the bridge of his nose before quietly reciting Arthur’s childhood address, the place, in fact, where his mother still lived.

Arthur’s gun was in his hands again before he could blink, his teeth bared so fast, the snarl so vicious that his face hurt at its ferocity.

Eames met his eyes balefully.

“Get in the car, Arthur. I’ll tell you everything, but we need to _move_.”

++

Eames drove carefully, attracting no unwanted attention, keeping them clear of the areas the cops hung out at that time of night and as he drove, he talked.

“To my discredit, I didn’t spot him until the déjà vu hit me – I got a better look at him then, he’d got cocky, sat in my eye line – and I realised he’d been in the same café as me a day or so before, which would have been somewhat unremarkable had I not swapped continents just that morning. The more I thought on it, the more I felt I’d seen him elsewhere as well, perhaps it was an impression of having seen him at the airport, perhaps he’d been foolish enough to stand in the same taxi line, the point was the more I saw him, the more I knew I’d seen him. So, naturally, I ditched him, took up his tail instead and followed him home.”

“Naturally.” Arthur concurred as though his fingers weren’t clenched so hard on the leather of his seat that he was in danger of tearing straight through it to the metal beneath, the sound of his mother’s address spoken aloud still hanging over him like noxious fumes, eating into him as Eames continued.

“I didn’t go with the flash version, he’s already seen my face, so I waited for him to get indoors, knocked him over the head and had him hooked up before he could say ‘oi how did you get in here’. It was quite disappointing in some ways, no security, no training of any sort that I could see and the dullest mind I’ve seen since… well, ever, really. I left him in his own back garden watching cheerleader’s mudwrestling--”

Arthur snorted.

“—Well, exactly. Anyway, I left him with his dirty and yet tedious little fantasy and went for a little recce about the place.”

“Attic?” Arthur asked unintentionally, used to the mundane certainty of secrets hoarded away like so many old Christmas decorations in the attics of the ordinary people’s minds.

“Worse. The office. The real room had a desk, chair and filing cabinet. In his mind, however, it was a cardboard cavern, towers and forts, some crumbling and stained, some new and still strong enough to stand tall without sagging, and _all_ of them, my love, meticulously labelled. I can only imagine I was as yet, incomplete because all I found was a folder atop his desk, open if you please, with several pictures of me as I must have appeared in recent days, in restaurants, on the street, on the flight, simply marked as ‘Known Associate - Eames’. _Your_ boxes were very handily still on his desk, however. In progress I suppose, marked as ‘Target’.”

Arthur had always scoffed at the notion of someone’s blood running cold. He welcomed the sharp chill at the back of his neck mid-fight, his body’s reminder that it could and would give him adrenaline as needed to help get him through whatever was happening, to keep him sharp, keep him fast.

This felt nothing like those times.

He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as Eames quietly drew up outside a house, stood alone, a tidy little box on a pristine square of lawn as though they were visiting a show home instead of discussing someone having apparently broken through Arthur’s every wall and left everything he cared about open and vulnerable.

Eames shut off the engine and sighed.

“I was expecting something on me, obviously, but instead every box I opened on that desk was full of pictures of you, post-it’s on some – childhood dog, cocker spaniel, Adolphus – everything from what looked like pictures of you playing in your yard as a little kid to the Marines to the shitty hotel we just left. However they got it all, it was recent, it was thorough, and it was, I have to say, mildly terrifying.”

Eames slanted Arthur a long look, a spark of humour finally drifting up past his leaden like seriousness.

“What on earth made you cut all that long hair off, darling? It was exquisite.”

Letting a corner of his mouth lift into the tiniest smile in response, Arthur tried to force his hammering heart back into something approaching a normal rhythm.

“Took me long enough to convince everyone that I wasn’t actually fifteen when I started, I’d still be trying now if I’d kept it long.”

Humming, Eames’ face softened enough for Arthur to feel oddly comforted. Nothing was beyond their capabilities when they worked as a team, and Eames’ teasing tone felt more like a day back in Paris than the night when he realised his mother was in danger because of him.

“A pity. I’ll remind you when you get crow’s feet dearest, no need to hold back once you’re as eventually haggard as the rest of us mere mortals.”

They smiled at each other, more grimly than they had each intended before Eames reached inside his jacket, drawing out a handful of polaroid’s, Arthur strangling down his kneejerk response to mock Eames for his deep suspicion of camera phones, theorising that in this instance there was no such thing as being _too careful_.

“Do you know any of these men?”

Arthur leafed through them quickly before making himself go back and stare at each in turn once more, trying to jog memories that apparently were simply not there.

“No, no, I don’t know any of them. Do you?”

Eames inclined his head towards the house with a jerk, already climbing from the car as Arthur realised he meant for them to continue their conversation inside, following him on quick, silent feet as Eames let them into the unlocked, oddly bittersweetly scented house.

Leading him through the house, Eames stopped in a room where the window already had its blinds drawn, still hesitating for a moment before he switched on a small lamp and proffered the photos beneath its meagre light.

“You’re _sure_? One hundred percent?”

Arthur looked again at the photos, eyes almost crossing as he tried and failed to find any recognisable features, his brain only sluggishly realising then as his hopelessness mounted, that each photo was of a different dead man.

He shook his head.

“No, I absolutely don’t know any of them. Did – did you..?”

He let the question hang, and Eames answered it with a careless shrug as he flicked back through the photos to what had been the first of the stack.

“Of course I did. Now, this is the gentleman in question, the one who made the mistake of catching my eye. The others I found in his very helpfully labelled filing cabinet, his entire team in fact. I learned more from his filing system than I did from each of the rest of them in turn, but none of them was responsible for the boxes, the snapshots of your life, just my main man there. There was one, as though he’d looked across and seen you in a theatre or a cinema and I realised then that's what all the pictures looked like, they all looked like that grainy footage from old home movies, the type of thing that likely doesn’t exist but--”

Arthur sagged, crouching, elbows braced on his knees as his face fell to his palms.

“If he had seen my mind, my memories, his recollection of them could easily be seen or stored as photos, screenshots of home movies from my own mind _…_ But that doesn’t make any _sense_. They couldn’t have got to me. I’ve barely slept. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I got here, there’s no way anyone could have gotten into my head at night, and I don’t have any missing time from during the days and I… _GODDAMMIT_!”

He lurched upwards, would have punched a wall but Eames hauled him back, trapping him against him with so little difficulty that Arthur would have been offended, had he not been grinding his teeth so hard he wondered if his skull might shatter. Perversely, he hoped it would.

“I… I went to a midnight showing a few days back… five days, five days ago. I dropped off, it’d been a long day, and like I said I haven’t been sleeping really and I knew the film really well, and… I was only out for a little bit but I… I didn’t think anything of it _dammit_ , I’ve got too used to Saito’s world, I’ve gone fucking _soft_ not being on the run.”

Eames released him slowly, reaching out to shut off the light even as he turned Arthur to face him.

“Firstly, I know diamonds with more give to them than you, darling. Second, how long were you out?”

Snarling to himself, Arthur blushed minutely, considering the run time of his guilty pleasure, _This Could Be the Night,_ a movie so rare he’d still been unable to get his mother a copy on DVD despite his years of illegal activity.

“Long enough, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. A good couple of hours’ worth of dream time.”

Eames grimaced.

“Just short enough so you’d think nothing of it--”

“—just long enough if you know what you’re doing to get in, get the job done and get out. You think they had my memories screening somehow?”

Squinting in a manner that had Arthur missing Dom for just a heartbeat, Eames nodded, tone sour as he concurred.

“It’s what I would have done, but it’s deeper than that, he was sat in the cinema with you, they probably made it show something that kept you sedate and nostalgic, cracked open your vault just enough for him to sit in on other screenings and watch your memories whirl by.”

Eames caught Arthur’s hands before he could slam them up over his face, holding him steady as terror and violence seethed their way through Arthur’s blood.

“They know where my Mom lives, Eames, my _MOM_. She doesn’t even know where I am from one year to the next, but they know how to get to her, to anyone left in my life that I hold dear, what the _fuck_ am I supposed to do?”

Eames nodded, silent as he pulled Arthur along in his wake, leading him out and up the stairs, finally stopping outside a room to glance back at him, expression unreadable as he pushed open the door for Arthur to precede him.

“What about him, you recognise that one?”

Arthur stepped through the doorway and stopped dead at the sight of the man, peacefully sleeping, already hooked up to the PASIV, rage roaring up through his body so swiftly that he swayed with it.

“Yes,” he ground out through gritted teeth, “he’s the one who gave me my room key when I checked in to the hotel. Fuckers had access to me the whole fucking time.”

“Well, that’s something,” Eames smiled, grim as he unspooled the cables, clearly preparing to hook both Arthur and himself up to the machine, “He was the only other guy left from my original bloke’s mental Filofax, if you hadn’t known him I’d be worried there was more of the team yet out there. One more little test to see why he’s been dabbling about in your mind pool and a double check to see if he has any other associates we should be aware of and we’re laughing.”

Arthur nodded, neck sore from moving when he was tense enough to all but shatter.

“I don’t feel much like laughing presently, but it’s a start,” he muttered, and Eames smiled at him apologetically as he pressed the needle into his arm.

“If I’d been thinking clearly versus being as rage-filled as you are now, I’d have left it so you could kill the others as well, but I’m afraid their trespasses were simply too much for my delicate sensibilities, so I dealt with each as I reaped what they’d stolen. Still, at least you’ll have this pathetic bastard to eviscerate once we’re sorted here, hm?”

He winked, and Arthur rolled his eyes, unaccountably looser, more relaxed with Eames twinkling at him as they sat side by side facing the bed, each with their guns in hand.

“Honestly, Mr Eames. It’s as though you think me some sort of bloodthirsty monster if that’s what you think will reassure me.”

It was abruptly as though they were in the middle of one of their regular jobs for Saito all of a sudden, Eames’ smile as blazing bright and naughty as Arthur had come to always find it when aimed his way and he couldn’t help but smile slightly back at him in return.

“Oh but Arthur, darling, you’re _my_ bloodthirsty monster.”

Eames’ gurgle of laughter at Arthur’s (admittedly blushing) eye roll was the last thing he heard before he found himself standing in a worryingly full corridor.

Arthur blinked about him, at the uniformed projections bustling all around him before turning to raise an eyebrow at Eames.

“You built a police station? And left him here? He must know somethings gone wrong by now surely, it had to have been a ten-minute drive to get me each way, and that’s not including however long it took to get out of my room--”

Eames chuckled, dressed better than he tended to be in reality, his admittedly worn suit better fitting than the shabby chic look he usually went for, a detectives badge clipped to his belt as he led Arthur to a small, dark room where a window looked through to another, smaller room with a table and two chairs.

“Don’t worry, he was in a sports car when I first joined his dream. I pulled him over for speeding, brought him in and then accidentally had to leave him in with the female detainees because of _overcrowding_ in the men’s section. I brought in a few of the seedier looking girls I use, all very friendly of course, and left him to populate it with whoever else his filthy little mind desired. As unspoken last requests go, I think I’ve been far more merciful than he deserved really.”

Arthur pulled a face.

“So what’s the plan now then? He knows about dreamshare, he may not know you but he sure as fuck knows me, if I go in there he may realise what’s happening and try to kick himself out?”

Eames grinned, rubbing his palms together.

“I’m going to go fetch him, tell him you’re dead and that we have his whole team in lockup swearing that he’s the one who did it and that he’s going to jail forever.”

Arthur snorted, it was clumsy but they’d both done more with less.

“So, what? You want me to go watch the jail cells, see if he brings anyone not already on your Polaroid’s?”

“Exactly, let me grill him for a bit first though, he needs to definitely bring them before we can make sure he’s filled it. I’ll _GoodBad_ cop him so that he doesn’t suspect it of being anything close to reality, and because the levels of information they’ve accrued argue more for extraction rather than a hit, his subconscious should automatically rebel against being accused of a crime he knows he hasn’t and wasn’t planning to commit.”

Nodding, Arthur frowned. “Sounds fine, only – what’s Good Bad Cop?”

Grinning, Eames looked towards the glass and, unthinking, Arthur followed his gaze just in time to watch the faint reflection of him in the doorway melt into a petite, if profoundly curvaceous woman with a fierce expression and glossy lips that would have put a porn star to shame.

Arthur wasn’t entirely sure that they weren’t Eames’ actual lips, blinking and turning back to smirk at the police officer now pouting as she leaned against the doorframe, checking to make sure her shirt was unbuttoned far enough for her admittedly splendid breasts to be in danger of spilling out with every breath.

“It means, darling,” she purred, somehow both furious and feline sounding all at once, “that I menace the hell out of him in a manner somewhat closer to a lap dance than an interrogation. You Like?”

She blew him a kiss and batted her eyes at him so hard that Arthur imagined he felt a small breeze kick up, the scent of mascara floating across to him.

“Sure,” he drawled, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall, “you should try wearing that lipstick shade in the waking world, it suits you. You wanna go get him or do we need to discuss your affinity for big tits too?”

With a bark of laughter too hearty to belong to his newly diminutive frame, Eames swanned out into the hallway. His hips swayed in a way that put Arthur in mind of the lumber and loom of his shoulders as he’d press close to look at something on Arthur’s desk, deliberately pushing into his personal space for the seeming thrill of Arthur batting him away.

His heart was still hammering wildly in his chest in the room where they each slept, but now, a level in and somehow a step away from the crushing horror of his mother being exposed due to his laxity, Arthur found himself smiling at the space Eames had been occupying only moments before.

He was terrified, deep in his core, but between his heart and that sense of impending horror, was a rising sensation of warmth and security.

Eames had seen what he hadn’t.

Eames had already taken care, in only a handful of days, of not just the guy who’d stored away Arthur’s secrets like they were just idle knowledge to be bartered versus the core of everything Arthur was, but of everyone on said thief’s team.

He’d killed, again and again – as they all had, had been forced to, in their time – but _this_ time he’d done it for Arthur, and there was something heady in that, something powerful that had Arthur’s blood burning with a need for something beyond vengeance.

Later.

That would have to be _later_ , because now Eames was all but tossing Arthur’s would be persecutor through the door into the room on the other side of the two-way mirror, the apparent sleaze ball making sure to accidentally cop a feel of Eames’ newly pert rear end as he collapsed into his chair.

“C’mon sugar, don’t be like that – let me go back and get Marilyn and Beyoncé, and we can get our own party going in here!”

Eames planted his hands on the table immediately before their target and leaned forward pseudo aggressively, practically pressing his latest breasts into the ecstatic man’s face.

“Oh sure, you think nailing a cop will help you? You better hope one of those girls back there will give you an alibi but I’ve got an ID on the body we found in the trunk of your car, and no amount of sexual activity is going to persuade me that you didn’t put it there!”

Eames tossed his hair, managing to look both furious and betrayed, as though his current pocket Venus form was dying to bang the lowlife, if only he hadn’t been _disobliging_ enough to have a dead body in his car.

Arthur couldn’t help but grin.

It was just ridiculous enough to play into dream logic, details from reality bleeding through with the base desires shaping the direction of the dream, Arthur’s ‘hotelier’ giving Eames the most pitiful puppy eyes ever seen outside animation.

“Sweetheart, there’s no body, it’s all a mistake. If you come with me right now we can go look, it’s a great car, the back seat’s huge, you’ll love it.”

Eames tossed what looked like a drivers licence onto the table and Arthur squinted, slightly unnerved to see what looked like his actual licence laying out in the open.

“It’s no mistake. We got a tip-off. You killed Arthur. You killed him, and your whole team are on record as saying it was you and you alone.”

The asshole straightened in his seat.

“No I… I didn’t kill him. I haven’t… he’s not dead. I just saw him.”

Eames eased a hip onto the table, his expression torn as he leaned his female form ever closer.

“Look, you don’t know how this is tearing me up inside, but I got a whole cell full of guys swearing you did it and a stiff on a block because you’re supposed to have put him there. My partner says we don’t have anything to hold you on and…” he bit into his plush lower lip and glanced away, prompting Arthur into a quiet, slow round of applause as Eames sighed tremulously. “I want to believe you, I _do_ but what else am I supposed to do when it’s your word against your whole team?”

He straightened so suddenly that his unfeasible breasts bounced almost directly into the soon to be dead man’s face, Eames’ abruptly more flushed (and had he added a layer of sleazier make up?) face brightening as though struck by inspiration.

“Do you have someone you can give me instead? Are you just the middle man sugar? Cos nothing would make me happier than to cut you loose if you can just point me to the man in charge?”

_Sugar_ grinned, cocksure and offensively smug as he lifted his hands to point two thumbs back towards himself. “You’re looking at him, sweetheart.”

Eames’ face crumpled, “You mean, you _did_ do it? You killed Arthur?”

“No-no babe,” he drew a suddenly much less aggressive Eames down onto his lap, “I don’t care what those idiots in the cells told you, we were only hired to get the truth about an old co-worker of his. Guy’s retired now but its rumoured he pulled off a game changer – I don’t have the info yet so it would be madness to off him. No one else ever figured out who he was, just Dom Cobb’s little shadow, we’re going to make a bloody mint off of him, he can’t be dead, that’d ruin everything…”

Eames threw a swift look through the mirror and Arthur walked out into the hall without waiting to see what his next actions would be.

Eames would likely have to keep their target sweet and considering that Arthur meant to kill him really quite soon, he couldn’t quite understand why he felt he wished to begrudge him this one last tease of sexual bliss, with the man who had slaughtered his teammates no less.

He moved quickly through the bustling corridors, the projections doing no more than glancing his way in irritation when he happened to block their paths, his would be extractor apparently so convinced of his dream world that there wasn’t so much as a ripple of suspicion as he made his way through to the holding cells.

There.

One full of what appeared to be playboy playmates, porn stars and underage pop stars (gross, killing him would be an absolute pleasure) and the other contained all seven of the deceased men from Eames’ photographs.

He moved toward the bars.

“Hullo, haven’t we met?” Arthur smiled and spoke to no one in particular, keeping the man who had apparently stored the facets of everything that made Arthur who he was in bland, stackable boxes at the periphery of his vision, watching for signs of recognition.

Each man shook his head, a uniform motion that made the last of Arthur’s jangled nerves smooth down into a quiet hum, satisfaction at a plan well enacted, their target apparently unaware of his men’s recent actions or fates, leaving him as the only loose end.

Arthur turned and went back the way he came, rolling his eyes at what appeared to be a slowly stripping Eames on the other side of the glass, rapping on it twice with his knuckles to signal him before striding back out into the corridor.

Eames scurried out on the promise to return with friends and a carton of whipped cream, rolling his eyes at Arthur as he slammed the door shut behind him.

“Thank you for the swift return, I take it all is as expected or else you’d have left me trying to forge nipple tassels onto myself, hm?”

Somehow, in the turn onto the staircase, Eames was himself again, and a prickle of something a little too akin to relief prickled over Arthur’s skin as he turned to face him.

“You got to everyone. It was the whole group, I… I can’t. Thank you.”

Eames looked down and away, his smile too tight to seem true.

“You’re welcome darling, one of the team and all. Also… _sorry_.”

And with that, he pushed Arthur over the bannister, the four storey drop just steep enough to see Eames throw himself over the side in the millisecond before Arthur’s skull shattered on the tiled floor below.

++

Arthur opened his eyes, elbowing Eames in the same second.

“Asshole, I could have just shot myself.”

“Would have attracted more attention, wanted to give you all the time you need to kill him however you want. You heard him. Arsehole thought he could deliver you and Dom up to the highest bidder. He deserves whatever you’re going to give him and more.”

Eames grunted as he hauled himself upright, extending a hand and pulling a still blinking Arthur to his feet, both of them stood alongside the bed, staring down into the face of the man who would indeed have served up everything Arthur held dear in the name of a quick buck.

Arthur raised a hand and shot him in the head, twice. Just to be sure.

Eames stared, “Well, _I_ could have done that, darling!”

Arthur shrugged. “I wanted him dead, so I killed him. All in all, I’m quite pleased with the outcome.”

Rolling his eyes, Eames stalked to a corner where Arthur now noted the source of the same sickly sour scent he’d noted upon walking in, a gas canister. Eames ushered him out before him and proceeded to liberally douse the bed and body before sprinkling the remainder about the room.

“You didn’t want to save the PASIV?”

“No, let anyone who figures it out get the message. Dream share isn’t as corporate as Saito’s trying to make it, we can’t let them think we’ve all been de-clawed by a few pretty paycheques now can we?”

Arthur made his way carefully back to the front door, waiting patiently while Eames rigged something with the oven and a timer that would guarantee the place would be an inferno before the hour was out, both of them climbing into the car with unfurrowed brows and loose shoulders, the weight of the world lifted free.

They were a few blocks away when a dull glow made itself known above the rooftops, the smell of the acrid smoke thickening the air for all it was still invisible against the night sky.

“Extraction point?” Arthur inquired, oddly heavy now, his body reminding him that he had yet to actually rest that night, the adrenaline falling away like an avalanche carrying him towards exhaustion now that the threat was past.

“Small airfield nearby, Saito’s jet brought me, it’ll be there again by now. We should be back in Tokyo just in time for Yusuf to unveil his latest formula. His most recent wittering’s about it likened it to an acid trip and children’s animation. Were I you, I’d insist on taking the rest of your holiday, no matter the location.”

With a snort, Arthur let his head loll against the headrest for just a beat too long it seemed because he found himself opening his eyes what felt like seconds later, the airfield before them and Eames’ hand warm, and careful at his shoulder.

“Arthur, my darling, we’re here, it’s time to board, I promise you can get some kip once we’re in the air, if not sooner, alright?”

Arthur meant to say ‘I’m awake’ but instead what came out was: “You didn’t need me.”

He turned his head sluggishly to meet Eames’ confused gaze.

“I don’t follow?”

Unclipping his seatbelt, Arthur groaned softly, rolling his head on his shoulders before turning to better face Eames.

“Tonight. You didn’t need me. You’d already eliminated the guy who actually had the information on me and mine, you’d taken out his team to the point where you’d already tracked and trapped its leader. You could have done that whole thing with your busty bad cop to get the information and excused yourself to get coffee to check on the cells. I wasn’t necessary for any of what went down tonight. I’m just saying is all.”

Eames’ face was perfectly blank, almost as it had been when Arthur had first opened his eyes and seen him earlier that night.

“Are you saying you wish I’d kept you out of this?”

Scoffing as hard as he could in the darkness with most of his brain still leaning towards sleep, Arthur threw Eames his best ‘ _You’re fucking kidding me, right’_ look and was reassured by Eames’ snort in response.

“Not even a little bit, if it hadn’t been such a waste of ammo I’d have used run both our guns out on him. But that’s not what I meant anyway, I just meant why did you wait till now to bring me in? Why bring me in at all at this point?”

Eames’ face twisted suddenly, a micro-expression of rage there and gone so swiftly it chilled Arthur to his bones, the Englishman’s eyes too dark for him to clearly read.

“I’ve had people come after me before, I’ve known people come after you. It’s not either of our first rodeos, so to speak, but… those _boxes_ Arthur… that... that shit was new. He had things, pictures, information, he _knew_ things, I mean--”

He cut himself off, giving Arthur a long look.

“I think it’s fair to say we all know each other as best we can in a field full of fake identities and pseudonyms, hm? It’s also fair that we research the crap out of one another just to be sure we won’t be sold down the river the moment the job is done, yes?”

Arthur nodded slowly, not sure where Eames was going but almost painfully aware of what looked like Eames’ hands trembling on the wheel at just the periphery of his vision.

“So it’s fair to say I know you as well as anyone in this misbegotten field of ours, we’ve both been in on the whole debacle since before Dom Cobb had even seen a bloody PASIV, but this guy, this _fucking bastard_ Arthur, he knew you. He _knew_ you, and I didn’t know how he got to you, who he’d been to you or why he’d done it, and you’re right, I should have called you in the second I saw all those pictures of you spilling out across his desk. But I didn’t. I didn’t. I woke up, and I shot him just like you shot that fucking arsehole back there. I didn’t even think. I just shot him without any thought as to whether you would want to see inside his head for yourself or if you’d want to talk to him or--”

“You thought maybe I’d been fucking him?”

Eames nodded once, sharply, snorting a breath down his nose.

“You thought maybe you’d killed my boyfriend?”

Pulling a face, Eames shook his head, “I didn’t give him that much credit, darling – we all have weak moments now and then – but I thought he could have been _someone_ to you and I just… alright, on one side of things I was jealous as hell because I thought this guy knew you like I never will, but on the main side of things, I knew your boxes all said ‘Target’ and I just…” he flexed his fingers, releasing and rewrapping them about the steering wheel with a violent sort of precision that left Arthur in no doubt that Eames felt he’d given him too quick a death, as Eames continued, his words hissed out low and harsh, “I…just… How _dared_ he?”

Arthur laughed, he couldn’t help it.

“How dare he…what? Stalk me? Extract from me? The things we regularly do to others?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Eames hissed again, releasing the wheel to turn to face Arthur as fully as was possible in the cramped space, “I don’t care who they are or what they wanted, they had no _right_ Arthur, they can mind-fuck whoever the hell they want in this fucking world, but _no one_ touches _you,_ I--”

Arthur cut him off, his lips pressed sweet and warm, smiling almost to Eames’ own as he silenced him mid-rant, pulling back after a moment or so when it became clear that Eames had frozen and wouldn’t be reciprocating.

Eames swallowed, his eyes wide and oddly fearful as he looked back into Arthur’s, only a few scant inches from his face.

“A-Arthur?” He husked, hesitantly and Arthur moved in for a second kiss, pressing his appreciation and gratitude into the kiss even as he hummed and pressed a slick inquiry to Eames’ lower lip with just the tip of his tongue, sliding inside on a smile as Eames groaned and let him in.

Several enjoyable and heated minutes passed by in this manner before Eames pulled away, his hand cradling Arthur’s jaw as he separated their mouths, smiling and frowning all at once.

“Darling, I – is this gratitude? Because I don’t…”

“You killed seven men for me this week because you knew they knew more than I’d be comfortable with anyone knowing. It would have been eight, but it seems you felt bad for not actually letting me kill the others in the first place, a situation that occurred – partly from jealous rage because it turns out all those times you’ve told me you adore me you weren’t actually fucking about with me – but mostly because you were outraged at both the concept of someone using a close relationship with me against me. And also you had a _stunning_ moment of hypocrisy where you decided that apparently anyone who even thinks of crossing me deserves to be shot in the face. I’m not gonna lie, that’s kind of hot.”

Eames raised a brow, his lips trembling before he wrangled them away from the smile they were apparently desperate to shape themselves into.

“That’s…hot? I buy you flowers, ties, suits, wine and tell you I adore you on at least a twice weekly basis and you apparently don’t believe me, but I kill a bunch of guys, and that’s…?”

“Ah,” Arthur held up a corrective finger, “killed a bunch of guys for _me_ , despite knowing I could easily dispatch them myself. So, yeah, I’m as surprised as you are if that helps but yeah, apparently I kind of find that a million times more convincing than all the gifts and it’s only been my disbelief in your sincerity that’s prevented me on taking you up on your offers all this time so… yeah. _Hot_.”

Eames smiled, slow and sexy and Arthur’s lack of sleep threatened him with something akin to a swoon.

“Well then, now I’m doubly pleased I shot the fucker in the face.”

Arthur grinned, shifting away to let himself out, waiting until Eames had joined him before asking,

“How many times?”

Pulling a face, Eames muttered, “A full clip.”

Arthur laughed, delighted.

“Mr Eames,” he drawled, mock horrified, tutting, “So _wasteful_.”

Eames gave him another long look before grinning, “Better than a bunch of flowers?”

Arthur moved to take him by the elbow, halting him at the foot of the stairs that led up and into the jet.

“You have no idea,” he murmured, pulling Eames close and enjoying the still wide-eyed surprise he got when he leaned close enough for his lips to brush Eames’ with every word, “and you should know that I’m going to sleep pretty much the second I’m buckled in up there, so I just wanted to put a placeholder on this right now, ok?”

_Placeholder?_ Eames mouthed, smiling and oddly nervous.

“Yeah, when I’m more awake I’d really like to pick this up again, right about _here_ …”

Arthur kissed Eames again, slow and deep, aching as he pulled away back after a few long moments, swaying as Eames steadied him, “…that ok with you, Mr Eames?”

Eames cleared his throat and blinked a few times, smiling.

“That would be lovely, thank you, Arthur.”

He kept a grip at Arthur’s elbow as they each made their way up the stairs, not releasing him until they toppled into their adjacent, enormously luxurious seats, Eames pausing to lift Arthur’s increasingly heavy hand to brush a kiss over his knuckles.

“I know you’re most of the way out already darling, and we can discuss this properly when you’re more with it, but what say we divert the old jet here to Kyoto instead, hm? See if we can’t give your holiday the ending you deserve to make up for all the shock and the extreme invasion of privacy et cetera?”

Arthur tilted in his seat until his forehead brushed Eames’ where he’d leaned over to him, smiling even as the darkness plucked at him as he somewhat slurred,

“First a killing spree and now a romantic getaway? Mr Eames, you sentimental fool you…”

The sensation of Eames’ soft laughter rippled through him where they touched and -- oddly excited to know Eames would be there when he woke, infuriating and enticing and apparently utterly fucking crazy about him in a way that Arthur had never let himself dream let alone believe before tonight -- Arthur was finally able to sleep.

Fin.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Moodboard for Those Who Dare, Die](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651160) by [dls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/pseuds/dls)




End file.
